


This, Too

by TempestRising



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Nightmares, Pre-Canon, Protective Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11497329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: In the process of looking for new apartments, Phil can't find any without bathtubs. This forces Dan and Phil to have a conversation they should have had years ago.Or: Phil was in an abusive relationship. And then he met Dan.





	This, Too

The Uses of Sorrow

_(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)_

Someone I loved once gave me  
a box full of darkness.  


It took me years to understand  
that this, too, was a gift.

.***.

Phil balanced his open laptop and a mug of hot chocolate in one hand as he eased up the staircase towards Dan.

"Hey, can you watch this? I don't know if - oh, thanks." Dan took the hot chocolate gratefully, long fingers curling around the warm curve. It was February and icy and they'd both agreed that today would be a stay inside day. Editing. Maybe a gaming video later. Lots of hot chocolate and anime breaks, and their promises disappeared as the sun set. Phil read and Dan edited. They came together in the kitchen, Phil buttering toast for Dan, Dan putting on an anime. It was like a dance. A kiss pressed on top of Phil's forehead as he read, a peck to the corner of Dan's lip as he photoshopped. Turning to each other and pulling away.

But Phil had not spent the last hour reading. He was looking at something else. "I found another one," Phil said, dragging his chair closer to the desk and putting the teeny tiny laptop down. He felt old whenever he remembered the monstrosity of his first laptop, and so he tried not to remember it. He tilted the thin screen towards Dan instead.

It was an apartment only a couple blocks away from their current one. Ever since the gas leak had been confirmed as a gas leak, they'd agreed to move out at the end of their lease. Too dangerous and too little storage. So Phil had been looking when he was supposed to be finding pictures for his video.

Dan clicked through the pictures. "No."

"No?"

"It has a bath tub. Didn't you see?" Dan slid the laptop back. "Hey. I feel bad that I'm not helping look."

"I like looking."

"No tubs."

Phil played with his fringe, bending back over the laptop. There was a silent agreement now that he would stay here with Dan. Sip the other man's hot chocolate. Play Dan's favorite songs and watch the video Dan was editing. But Phil was thinking instead, which was almost always a bad thing. "It's not - it's not even bad anymore. It was eight - nine years ago."

Dan was looking at his own screen. "You had a nightmare two weeks ago."

"It was probably gas-leak induced."

"I don't mind moving further away," Dan said. "I'll look for a place. Why don't you go to bed?"

It was late, the kind of late that was early. Almost two in the morning. Time, Phil thought, for another hot chocolate and some animal videos. It was always worse this time of year. The nightmares. He felt bad being in bed with Dan, felt bad about waking him with screams again.

He hated that it still bothered him. But he hated that Dan noticed more. Dan had been there for the tail end of it. Eighteen year old Dan had been the one to pull Vince off him the last time. Cardigan wearing Dan had pushed Vince out the door. Long-haired Dan had held a dripping wet Phil until he regained consciousness.

Phil closed his eyes and left Dan to his editing.

He was not the complicated one. Brooding didn't sit well with him. And so he ignored it. Put the kettle on. Watched the stove glow red.

Vince had pushed Phil down on the hot stove once. It burned through his shirt. Burned his back. He'd screamed. It was the first time the neighbors called the police. He still had scars like half of three concentric circles. Dan liked to trace them, all the time, when he was naked, when he wasn't, Dan's long finger trailing over the healed scars on the tube and on planes. Everywhere.

He'd known at the time that Vince was abusive. Oh, not at the beginning. Phil had been in one relationship before Vince, with a pretty but emotionally manipulative girl named Shawna who'd lived in his dorm in college. With Shawna he'd gotten used to things like being called useless and boring and faggy one minute and darling, sweetheart, love the next. He'd gotten used to being stood up. To being ridiculed in front of his friends. To being separated from his friends. Eventually Shawna left to chase her dreams to Sweden, and Phil had fallen into a relationship with Vince.

Vince loved to be with him, loved to meet Phil's parents and brother. Loved footing the bill for nights of extravagant drinking. Six months into their relationship (this was during his mater's program and he'd been tired, so tired, all the time) Vince held Phil down for the first time. Gripped his wrists tight enough to leave scars. It wasn't until the next morning that Phil realized he'd said no. Whispered, pleaded no no no. But maybe Vince didn't hear him. Vince didn't know how strong he was. Phil took to wearing long sleeves in the summer. He worked inside anyway.

Dan began messaging him online. The first time Vince saw a back-and-forth conversation he'd beaten Phil bloody and called it love.

Phil spent more time in the computer labs, where he wore the dark like a shield. He messaged Dan on the school computer. He worried about talking to a teenager. So he didn't dump his problems on Dan. He gave the younger boys editing tips and listened to school drama and worked on his thesis. Even that, he thought, was cheating on Vince. Because he wanted to talk to Dan all the time now, and he never wanted to see his actual boyfriend.

He stopped talking to his brother. Martyn had seen the bruises. Fine, Phil said. It's fine. I'm so clumsy. Martyn said he'd never liked Vince, which was a blatant lie. Everyone liked Vince. Without Vince, Phil was sure he'd blend so far into the background he'd disappear completely.

He posted a video and fans noticed a bandage on his collarbone. He privated the video two days later.

Vince liked to hit him in the shower and watch the blood go down the drain. Phil knew it was wrong but was afraid to leave. Every time he mentioned Vince to his family or friends (but not Martyn, they weren't talking anymore, and not Dan, definitely not Dan, he'd never mentioned he had a boyfriend to Dan, oops) every time he mentioned his boyfriend it was the same. "Oh, Vince? I LOVE Vince!"

The neighbors called the police again and Vince began complaining that Manchester was too small. Maybe they'd go somewhere they didn't know anybody. Somewhere Vince could have Phil all to himself.

And then -

\- the kettle boiled.

Phil nearly dropped his laptop. Poor thing had been through so much. Didn't know what it was signing up for, being one of Phil's electronics. His hands were shaking so badly he poured hot water over his fingers. Hissed. Sucked them into his mouth. Absent-mindedly reached for the phone and dialed Martyn before realizing it was two am.

He was about to hang up when his brother answered the phone. "Hello?" Voice fluffy from sleep and muffled from trying not to disturb someone inches away. "Phil? You alright?"

Phil closed his eyes. Wondered if all those years ago his brother had waited for the call that said Phil wasn't all right. And he'd gotten it, in the end.

"Sorry. I didn't realize it was late. I'll talk to you later, right?" Phil laughed nervously.

"Is Dan awake?" Martyn was always too perceptive for his own good.

"Yes."

"Relationship issues?"

Phil had tried over and over to explain Dan to his brother. That they weren't in a relationship but sure, yeah, they loved each other. They moved with each other. They slept with each other. No, I'm not getting married, Martyn. I just never want to be without him. No one really understood that being with Dan was just being home. Phil was indescribably relieved to have Dan around (he hoped Dan felt the same.) And they'd just...forgotten...about seeking anyone else. They slept in the same bed and made sure to never hold hands in public. But somehow - somehow he knew that this was the right type of love. A good kind of secret.

Martyn, good brother he was, waited out the long pause. "Nightmares?"

"Dan wants a place without a bath tub," Phil said, stiffly. Then: "We can really talk in the morning, okay? I'm sorry -"

"I'm up. Don't get a bath tub. Can big brothers give orders? I'm ordering you to get a shower."

"You're a mother hen," Phil huffed. He always felt young and petulant on the phone with family.

A long sigh on the other end of the line, and the snick of a door closing. Phil guessed that Martyn had left the bedroom. "You're right. I'm a mother hen. You nearly died. I didn't talk to you for a month even though I knew something was wrong. And you nearly died."

"I didn't talk to you for a month," Phil said, catching the drops of tea that ran down his mug on one finger. "That was me. Not you."

"I'm the big brother. I knew something was wrong. I knew he hit you." Martyn's next breath was shaky.

Phil timed his next sentence. "I just want it to be over. It is over. It's been eight years. And I'm still scared of bathtubs."

Not pools or oceans. He was a strong swimmer. He was afraid of being in a bath and dipping his head under water. How stupid was that?

"Everyone's got their thing." Maryn said easily. "I used to be afraid of bumble bees."

But, when Phil hung up the phone, he still thought, couldn't help but think, that it still wasn't a big deal. London was full of bathtubs. He was thirty. It'd a dumb irrational fear that he'd have to fake.

And this place was really nice. Mysteriously cheap. Enormous. He brought it to Dan, who was finally in bed, scrolling through his phone.

"Are you sleeping in here?" The younger man asked, then amended. "I want you to sleep in here. That way when you have a nightmare I can wake you up without getting out of bed." He glanced at Phil. "Find another one?"

Phil handed Dan the laptop. Went to go take out his contacts. That was another thing Vince liked to do that he hadn't thought about in years. He'd hide Phil's glasses. It made Phil incredibly dependent on the other man. He shuddered at the memory and put the contacts case right where he could always find it, on the tap. It was a quirk Dan groused about only in jest. Phil had seen Dan move it in the morning and put it back, carefully, in the exact right spot.

He went back to the bedroom and crawled into the cold side of the bed, facing Dan's back. And then Dan rolled over, face a storm. "Bath tub."

"You try finding a London apartment without a bath tub," Phil murmured into the sheets.

Dan huffed that huff that meant he was just about done with Phil, and Phil closed his eyes. "You know what? I will."

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't say you're sorry. I hate when you say you're sorry."

"I know. I -" He was about to say he was sorry again, of course, but instead he took off his glasses and closed his eyes. He was so tired, and he'd been getting four hours of sleep a night, max. Making cereal at seven in the morning. Taking early morning walks. Rewatching shows. And ten o'clock would pass before Dan was up, and Phil would have to make himself not leap on Dan as soon as he came out of his room. He felt touch-starved as a live wire by noon, and the absent-minded pecks as they went over paperwork or scripts or comments wasn't enough. He was wrapped up in memories again. It was moving, he knew. Moving always stirred up the memories.

Dan put a hand on his cheek. "It's not -" he began, then swallowed. "It's not that you're not strong enough. Because you are. You're a fucking champ. I can't stand bath tubs, Phil. And I know it's not fair to put on you because you were hurt so bad and I was just there for the end of it, and I can't put my trauma on top of your trauma but I fucking - I can't -"

"Wait." Phil was so confused. "Wait, what? I'm sorry. Dan. What?"

"I can't stand them. Phil. I was - I was eighteen. I was mad that you didn't pick me up at the train station like you always did." Dan's breath is coming in short now. "And I caught a taxi and I found the spare key and i let myself in about to start a fight because I thought you were just distracted and forgot the time - and you're - just - you're drowning."

"Dan..."

Dan shook his head, palm pressing down on Phil's cheek. "And I think about it all the time. What would happen if, like, the taxi line had been longer. Or if I'd brooded at the station. Or if I didn't catch my train."

"Hey." Phil drew Dan closer, and even with his terrible eyesight he could see that Dan was shaking. He could feel it. So he drew Dan under his chin, and it was years ago, and Phil was taller. "Did I ever thank you for pulling me out of that tub?"

"About a billion times," Dan huffed, his eyes puffy. Phil pretended that was from exhaustion.

"Well, let me thank you again. Even though I personally believe that the universe put you in the right place at the right time," he said, just to feel Dan chuckle tearily in his arms, "you were an an amazing kid."

"That sounds like past tense."

Phil pulled away. "Do you really hate bath tubs or are you saying that for me?"

"I can't stand them. We have the means to move to a place we like now. And we're going to look like the weirdest couple in the world, like on all those house hunter shows. 'Dan and Phil have only one peculiar item on their wish list - no bath tub.'" Dan said the last in a passable imitation of a tv voice over. He buried his face in Phil's shirt. "I should've kicked Vince's ass."

"I'm glad you didn't. You could've been hurt." As he spoke, Phil felt something pressing against his back. He ignored it. He was so tired. House hunting could wait til morning. Everything, it seemed, could wait til morning.

Dan was tracing a pattern on his back. Concentric circles, over and over again. And Phil could imagine it was the days after the bath tub incident, when Phil related it all back in as steady a voice as he could manage, and Dan held him. They were both smaller then, but the touch was the same. I love you, the touch said in a circle, in infinity. I love you. Don't leave me.

"I love you," Phil said out loud, but Dan's hand had stilled, still under Phil's shirt. He had already fallen to sleep.

So Phil followed him, and dreamed of swimming in a cool blue lake, of going down, down below the surface, unafraid because he knew with unwavering certainty that there was someone watching, waiting, to pull him back home.

**Author's Note:**

> My sister said "make it a happy ending." Hope this was happy enough.


End file.
